Questify Your Life Sierra: Episode Fourteen
Onto new quests and reprioritizing individual well-being
It feels like it’s been a long time since I posted anything on Substack. So this newsletter is to bring you up to speed with what’s been happening in my life.
First, in March, my partner lost his job for a little while because of the Federal hiring freeze, and that, combined with an unnecessary uncertainty in my ability to run my own business, led me to apply for a couple of legal jobs. Within two weeks, I got an interview and started a job as an attorney working with a team of fantastic attorneys focused on helping high-support needs autistic individuals and their families. It seemed like it would be the perfect fit, I could keep doing what I loved as a side gig — speaking and consulting on mental health, neurodiversity, and mental health topics and creation Questify Your Life content creation — while using my privileges as an attorney to advocate for my community and support myself and my partner while he figured out his next steps. (Note: the hiring freeze was temporarily lifted, and he started his job with only about three weeks of unemployment. In hindsight, it was a non-issue, but with all of the dragons attacking, I felt like I needed to take some steps to financially protect myself.)
But I was wrong about it being the perfect fit. I was working as a staff attorney, primarily focused on social security disability cases. I met many great people at the firm and I hope to remain in contact with them. The schedule worked well, the small team was a bonus, the pay was good enough, the benefits were great, and I had enough flexibility to continue with my external business and volunteer obligations.
Yet I had to quit after less than three weeks at that job.
Now, this was not a skill issue. I was qualified for the work I was doing and all of the feedback I received was generally positive. It was because I was spending my days reading young autistic adults’ medical records all day and was reminded over and over again how I was treated when I was their age. My job was to frame everything that was provided to me by doctors and parents to make it clear that the person I was representing could never hold a full-time job.
It was heartbreaking.
It reminded me how my own traits are pathologized and villainized.
I am still healing from those three weeks.
I am an autistic attorney, disability rights advocate, national public speaker, and a gamification life coach.
But when I was 18, my mom fought hard to get me on SSDI and SSI. It’s strange to think about how many documents I have that show that nobody believed that I could ever support myself. I was often seen as a burden and an inconvenience. Back then, I lived off of barely enough to pay my rent and feed myself. In my young adult life, I went to college, and dropped out twice, not because I knew what I wanted to be and needed a degree, but because I wanted to be seen as capable and I needed to take out student loans so I could afford having a social life.
Skipping forward many many years…
I am now in mental health recovery. I worked really hard and I got lucky. I found a treatment that works really well for my life-threatening depression. I still live with a variety of mental and physical health conditions, but they inform the way I live my life rather than stopping me from living it.
But, I had to quit the staff attorney job because I found my anxiety increasing from spending so much time reading and writing about how much these young adults, people I relate to, are unable to do things.
The switch from being an advocate for a strength-based approach to living a self-directed life over to being an advocate in a broken system that is under attack by the current administration was not something I wanted to do, nor something that I could do long-term without serious consequences to my health. Plus, the law firm had the person I was replacing teaching me her role, and she would be there as a mentor for me until the end of April. I did not want to hurt the next person’s chance at having a mentor simply because I wasn’t courageous enough to say no to something that I knew wasn’t the right fit for.
So I quit.
So, if I am not practicing law, what am I doing?
Well, treating my life like a video game, of course.
I simply tried a new style of game (working at a law firm), it didn’t work well for me, so I pivoted to the next thing. Or rather, back to what I was doing with a newfound gratitude for owning my own business and having complete control over my time.
My main quest can be split into six parts.
Speaking and consulting
I love speaking. I primarily speak on neurodiversity, disability, and mental health topics. Here is my speaking and consulting website if you’d like to know more.
Because of the attacks against DEI, I was worried that the demand for the work I am doing would decrease. And I was right for awhile, I have had negotiations end because funding was pulled because of fear of retaliation from this administration.
But, I am contracted to travel to Canada, Michigan, and California this summer for speaking engagements, plus many remote and Minnesota-based events too. Some of these gigs include SHRM and ACLEA.
I am confident enough in my offers (though my marketing definitely needs a skill level-up) to know that I am good at what I do and the messages I bring to the audience are important and timely.
It feels like a dream come true when I get in front of an audience that wants to learn about what I know.
Questify Your Life: Gamified Group Coaching
I am launching a beta test for my thirteen-week gamified group coaching program, which will begin on May 5th, 2025. I am already accepting applications to the program and will send out additional newsletters explaining the offer in more detail soon.
If you’d like to learn more about the offer or just want a longer explanation about Questify Your Life system in more detail, I would recommend checking out my free webinar on Tuesday, April 22, 202,5 from 5- 6 p.m. CT.
Bard with a mission (aka building Sierra’s little corner of the internet)
I am trying to use this restart as an opportunity to be more consistent in creating things to post online. Whether that is a YouTube video, LinkedIn post, or a Substack article, I know that I enjoy sharing information and it is also important to build a digital brand for my business.
Mini-quest: Social Media Consistency
Purpose: A one-month quest to evaluate how much weekly content I can produce without overthinking it or stressing about it too much. I want to do this because I have found myself posting less because of fear. Fear that I will be purposefully misunderstood. Fear that somehow what I say will be used against me in a political way. But, I can get through the fear by just posting things. Stopping myself from creating because I am scared of imaginary consequences is a trap that I fall into often, but I have the ability to get out of the trap pretty easily, by simply trying.
Objectives: For the next month or so, especially while marketing the gamified group coaching offer, try to post as consistently as possible to this schedule:
Daily Tiktoks
Publish a Youtube video every Monday or Tuesday. At least one of those a month will be a Podcast episode.
Substack article twice a week. Publish one on Tuesdays or Wednesdays with a link to the Youtube video somewhere in the article and one on Thursdays or Fridays.
Linkedin posts twice a week. Publish one on Tuesdays or Wednesdays with something valuable to your audience and publish one on Thursdays or Fridays with something that you did or are offering.
Reward: New microphone for content creation.
Dragon-fighting
Since I have such flexibility in my time, I volunteer with various organizations to try to make a positive change in the world.
For me, this looks like doing work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Minnesota (NAMI MN), the Minnesota Disability Bar Association (MDisBA), and the Minnesota State Advisory Council on Mental Health. These organizations have led to so many amazing connections and opportunities in my life. I highly recommend spending a little bit of time during your week doing volunteer work, it is a fantastic way to level up various skills.
Character upkeep and home base decorating
I know that the next several years are going to be stressful and scary. There’s a part of me that feels incredibly guilty for having the support system, skills, and belief in myself that I do. Logically, I know I do not need to feel guilty for experiencing good things, but I’ve been seeing that it is becoming more common for joy to be laced with guilt as myself and those around me watch a crumbling democracy.
So, I am making sure to intentionally take care of myself and use my skills to retain my recovery. Character upkeep includes doing things like fun and silly side quests, for me that is a lot of hosting of game nights with friends. It is also making sure I do the simple but not easy things in my life to work on my health.
Daily Well-being Quest List
In case it is helpful for you, here is my character daily quest list. These are not in any particular order, but I do typically number them so I can roll a twelve sided dice to help me choose which to start with if I am struggling with decision fatigue.
Gratitude
Mediation/Mindfulness
Social Connections
Reflections/Writing
Hydration
Movement
Nourishment
Sleep Prep
Go Outside
Joyful Side Quest
Tidy Home Base
Hygiene
“Dream Big”
Finally, I am exploring an opportunity for a very large new main quest.
If it does seem like I have even a small chance at accomplishing this incredibly lofty goal, then it will be worth the effort and struggle that it would take for me to pursue it. Because the world is so politically charged and also feels very dangerous recently, I am choosing to keep this dream close to my chest until I have a team and a plan, but I am including it here to show an example of how it is a great option to explore your quest options to gain insight about what you want to be doing with your time. It is okay to explore and then decide to not finish a quest, the lessons are found throughout your journey, not just in the completion of your quests.
Whatever quest you are going on, I am proud of you for going on it,
Sierra